Many areas of the world are inhabited by wildlife. Often the wildlife consists of large animals. The areas may be served by roads. Good examples are national parks within the United States. Some national parks serve a large number of visitors on a daily basis. The visitors arrive and travel through such parks by motor vehicles. Typically, the roads are two-lane roads.
It is not unusual for a family traveling within an automobile on a road within a national park to have a family member spot a large animal, such as a bison, in land adjacent to the road. The driver of the vehicle will typically pull over to the side of the road to allow the vehicle occupants to view the animal. Other drivers driving on the same road see this and become curious. Their attention is drawn to the vehicle which has pulled to the side of the road. They too pull over because of the possibility that an animal which they or their passengers want to observe is in the area. Periodically, the drivers pull over to the side of the road after seeing another vehicle pull to the side of the road only to find that the animal being observed is not an animal of interest. This wastes the time of that driver and the driver's occupants as well as causes traffic congestion. Similarly, vehicles approaching the stopped vehicle from other directions, such as a head-on direction, react in the same way. They may pull over only to find that they are not observing an animal of interest. This problem becomes particularly egregious within national parks because national parks are usually served by only two-lane roads with minimal or no road shoulders. On busy park days traffic congestion caused by vehicles pulling over becomes a significant problem.
Traffic congestion is caused by all of the vehicles which pull over to the side of the road in response to an initial vehicle pulling over to the side of the road. These vehicles include vehicles containing occupants having an interest in the animal being observed. These vehicles also include vehicles containing occupants ultimately determining that the animal is not an animal of interest, and therefore the stop was unneeded. Traffic congestion is further exacerbated by the fact that many vehicles drive at a slow rate of speed while passing stopped vehicles in order to determine the point of interest. Additionally, other vehicles may drive past a particular animal of interest because the occupants do not learn the identity of that animal until they actually pass the stopped the vehicle.
There is a need for a device and a method for reducing traffic congestion within wildlife areas and for notifying occupants of approaching vehicles as to the type of animal spotted by an occupant of the stopped vehicle. An object of this invention is to identify spotted animals to approaching vehicles such that the drivers of those approaching vehicles have sufficient time to make a decision whether to stop or continue. This is accomplished by making the identity of an observed animal known to others from a distance which will minimize traffic congestion by allowing uninterested observers to continue driving, while allowing interested observers to stop and observe an animal of interest.